In the midst of a fierce public debate about US immigrationpolicy, it is sometimes easy to forget that the US has long taken the lead inoffering refuge to people who suffer persecution and torture in their homecountries. We have resettled more refugees than any other country in the world,and thousands of people are granted asylum every year.

But in spite of our country’s leadership in this field, muchremains to be done to ensure that every deserving refugee gains protection inthe US. The past successes and current challenges in the US asylum process werethe focus of a day-long symposium on the 60th anniversary of the1951 Refugee Convention, which enshrined in international law the human rightto protection from persecution and the fundamental duty of all states to offerrefuge to those who flee persecution and torture in their home countries.

Co-hosted by Georgetown Law, Human Rights First, and theOffice of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “Reaffirming Protection: Strengthening Asylum in the United States” brought together adiverse group of advocates, academics, and government officials to discuss thestate of the asylum system. Representatives from Immigration and CustomsEnforcement (ICE) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), two ofthe agencies within the Department of Homeland Security charged with overseeingthe asylum system, agreed that much needed to be done to remove the barriers thatstand in the way of genuine refugees gaining asylum. For example, allparticipants agreed that the one-year bar to asylumis an unnecessary impediment to asylum that does nothing to deter fraud in theasylum system, and has actually given rise to criminal enterprises that producefraudulent documents for asylum seekers.

Speakers also discussed the difficulties created by theincreased use of immigration detention. Under current US law, all people whoarrive at a US border and ask for asylum must be detained. While many have theopportunity to leave detention if they can demonstrate a credible fear ofpersecution in their home countries, many others wait for months in detentionfor an Immigration Judge to decide whether they merit asylum. Many of thesedetained asylum seekers do not speak English or have legal representation, andare kept in detention centers located far away from family, friends, and legalservice providers. While ICE has made significant progress in correcting themost egregious abuses in the detention system, much remains to be done toensure that asylum seekers have a fair shot at obtaining asylum.

One common thread running through all of the day’sdiscussions was the urgent need for Congress to address our broken immigrationsystem. As committed as DHS may be to fixing the detention system and ensuringaccess to asylum, many reforms cannot be made without acts of Congress. Severalbills currently in Congress, including the Refugee Protection Act of 2011 andthe Restoring Protection to Victims of Persecution Act, would eliminate theone-year filing deadline and deserve the full support of Congress. And whilethe upcoming implementation of a risk assessment tool to determine whether someimmigrants really need to be detained is a welcome reform by ICE, it lacks theauthority to release any immigrant who Congress has deemed mandatorilydetainable.

Sixty years after the creation of the 1951 RefugeeConvention, the US still protects more refugees than any other country. But theroad to gaining asylum has become unnecessarily burdensome and prevents untoldthousands of people from gaining asylum every year. As one panelist stated, thecomplexity of asylum law is itself a defacto bar to asylum for many people. Dedicated advocates and government officialshave presented many worthy solutions to these problems. It is time for Congressto recognize that our asylum and immigration detention systems are broken andfulfill its responsibility to ensure that America can offer protection toeveryone fleeing persecution and torture abroad.

Federal Border Patrol agents aren’t the only people scouring the US-Mexico border in search of immigrants illegally crossing the border, joining their ranks are groups of armed private citizens. These citizens claim to support law enforcement by protecting America from the security threat of uncontrolled immigration. Groups such as the Minuteman Project, Ranch Rescue, and the American Border Patrol claim to “operate within the law,” yet they regularly violate both domestic and international law.

Verbal threats, physical assault, and false imprisonment are just some of the crimes that vigilante groups commit while undertaking unofficial patrol of the border. US Border Patrol officers frequently witness these violations, but fail to arrest the culpable individuals. As a result, neither federal nor state prosecutors are prompted to take action. This complicity by the US government encourages the illegal behavior, fails to provide relief for the victims, and offers no protection for future victims.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a division of the Organization of American States (OAS), will soon rule on a petition brought by Border Action Network, a human rights organization based out of Arizona, to determine whether the US has a legal duty to prevent, investigate, and sanction these vigilante groups for the crimes they commit. The US is a member of the OAS and is bound to respect the human rights guarantees set forth in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. One obligation under the Declaration is to affirmatively protect the human rights of all individuals within US territory, regardless of their immigration status. The US should investigate and prosecute criminal incidents of vigilantism along the Mexican border in order to satisfy this responsibility under international law.

The US justice system is founded on the rule of law. Vigilantism is in direct contravention to this underlying ideology. By taking the law into their own hands, vigilante groups along the border aren’t maintaining order and security; they are creating an atmosphere of intimidation and fear. The US must hold these private individuals accountable for the crimes they commit in order to comply with its obligations under international human rights law.

“We are afraid… each time one of us is interviewed by investigating officers. [S]ome of the women who have given statements have either been transferred or deported…”

–          Letters to then-Attorney General Janet Reno from women detainees at the Krome Immigration Center in Miami, Florida.

Due to the relatively closed nature of the system, there is very little publicly available data detailing the extent of sexual abuse in immigration detention centers.  However, recently uncovered documents reveal nearly 200 official complaints of sexual abuse in detention facilities since 2007. This number is probably just the tip of the iceberg given that sexual abuse is one of the most underreported crimes in the US.

Immigration detainees often lack information regarding their rights, the rules governing staff conduct, and the procedures for filing grievances. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the government agency in charge of immigration enforcement and detention, maintains that it has a zero-tolerance policy against sexual abuse. On paper, ICE has recognized that “forceful and pressured interactions are among the most serious threats to detainee safety and facility security and good order.” Still, more needs to be done to improve the system.

Mechanisms must be created for detainees to safely report abuse without fear of retaliation. Immigration detainees are understandably reluctant to speak out against the very authority that is conducting their deportation proceedings. They fear they won’t be believed, and that as a consequence, the government will retaliate against them by deporting them. ICE’s Performance Based Detention Standards dictate that detainees cannot be harassed or punished for filing a grievance and cannot be deported or threatened with deportation for reporting sexual abuse. However, these standards lack the force of law. Without a legally-binding guarantee of the prohibition on retaliation, it’s easy to understand why immigration detainees are reluctant to come forward to report sexual abuse.

Transparency and public scrutiny are necessary to ensure that detention facilities are complying with ICE’s anti-retaliation standards. Without such oversight and accountability, sexual abuse in immigration detention will continue to fly under the radar and many crimes will go unreported and unnoticed.

Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that corporate entities can be held accountable for human rights violations committedabroad. At the heart of the debate is the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), amechanism through which non-US citizens can bring lawsuits in US federal courtfor acts committed abroad that violate international law. In 2004, the USSupreme Court established the categories of claims that can be brought underthe ATCA, but the court never defined who can be sued under the Act. The generalrule is that both states and private individuals can be held responsible forinternational law violations, but the question of corporate liability still remainsunclear. This lack of guidance resulted in the lower federal courts coming todifferent conclusions.  The recent rulingby the Ninth Circuit is directly contrary to the decision reached by the SecondCircuit in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. The Kiobel case isslated for Supreme Court review in order to resolve the uncertainties in thisarea.

In Kiobel, a groupof Nigerian citizens filed suit in federal court claiming that they weresubjected to torture, rape, and beatings by the Nigerian government becausethey protested against oil exploration. The victims wanted to hold the RoyalDutch Petroleum Company legally responsible for the abuses they suffered becausethe oil company provided money, weapons, and food to the perpetrators. TheSecond Circuit dismissed the lawsuit, indicating that corporations are immunefrom suit for international law violations. The Supreme Court must now decidewhether or not the oil company is liable for its complicity in the human rightsabuses inflicted by the Nigerian government – a decision that will ultimately setthe standard on whether or not corporate entities can be sued under the ATCA.

International human rights law is designed to promote andprotect human rights for all people. The expectation that US corporations shouldbe immune from lawsuits does not, and cannot, supersede the right of people tobe free from torture and ill treatment. Failure to hold corporationsaccountable for their human rights violations will result in a growing climateof impunity, especially among multi-national corporations operating out of thedeveloping world.

Physicians for Human Rights recently announced the arrival of prominent Iranian AIDS doctors Arash Alaei and Kamiar Alaei in the US following 3 years in prison in Tehran. During their imprisonment, PHR spearheaded a 3-year international campaign which called for their release and engaged hundreds of leading AIDS experts, virologists and health organizations. In late 2010, Dr. Kamiar Alaei was released and Dr. Arash Alaei was released last month. On October 22, 2011 the brothers were interviewed by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN.

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Source: CNN

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Doctors of the Dark Sidewill premiere at Georgetown University Law Center this coming Monday, October 24, 2011, at 6:30pm. Thefilm documentsthe critical role that physicians and psychologists played in the torture ofdetainees in US custody, an issue which PHR has been investigating and reportingon for several years in attempt to prevent future abuse of detainees andsimilar ethical violations.  Thisvisually compelling, often graphic documentary, narrated byMercedes Ruehl, contains interviews of doctors, psychologists, militaryofficers, former detainees, and attorneys who reveal the substantial involvementby health professionals in the systematic physical and psychological tortureand abuse of detainees.

The documentary will be followed by a panel discussion,moderated by Kristine Huskey, PHR’s Director of Anti-Torture Program andAdjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center. Panelists will include:

• M. Gregg Bloche, Professor,Georgetown University Law Center and author of The Hippocratic Myth: Why Doctors Are Under Pressure toRation Care, Practice Politics, and Compromise Their Promise to Heal
• Martha Davis, Producer and Director of "Doctorsof the Dark Side”
• Leonard Rubenstein, VisitingScholar, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School for Public Health
• Dr. Stephen Xenakis,US Army Brigadier General (Ret.), Court-approved medical expert, GuantanamoTribunals

Doctors of the Dark Side gives a human faceto an issue that many do not want to confront. As demonstrated in the film, andas further described by PHR in, Broken Laws, Broken Lives,medical professionals implicitly or explicitly authorized the torture thatoccurred at Guantanamo, including practices such as isolation, sleepdeprivation, forced nakedness, severe humiliation and degradation, and sensorydeprivation. This must-see documentary confirms the need to strengthen through state legislation professional ethical standards by prohibitinghealth professionals’ participation in torture, abusive treatment andinterrogation.

For his first official investigation as the UN SpecialRapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment orPunishment, Juan Mendez chose to tackle the question of whether the use of solitaryconfinement amounts to torture. The use of solitary confinement, where prisonand jail inmates are locked in their cells alone for 22 to 24 hours a day withlittle to no access to sunlight, fresh air, and human contact, has become awidespread practice around the world since it was first developed in the US inthe early 1800’s. On October 18, after formally transmitting the results of his investigation to the UN General Assembly, Professor Mendez told theaudience at an event,co-sponsored by PHR, that in almost all circumstances, the social isolation andsensory deprivation inherent in solitary confinement constitutes cruel,inhuman, and degrading treatment, and often rises to the level of torture.

For the tens of thousands of people who are kept in solitaryconfinement in the USand throughout the world every day, this conclusion comes as no surprise. Thepsychological effects of solitary confinement, which can include anxiety,depression, hallucinations, paranoia, psychosis, and self-harm, arewell-documented and long-lasting. Indeed, Prof. Mendez concluded that after asfew as 15 days in solitary confinement, some of these harmful effects canbecome irreversible.

The panelists at the event, “The Dangerous Over-Use ofSolitary Confinement,” echoed Prof. Mendez’s conclusions. Prof. Craig Haney, anexpert on solitary confinement, noted that the continued use of solitaryconfinement in the face of overwhelming evidence of the suffering it causesshows that “we have abandoned our commitment to rehabilitation,” while JamieFellner, a senior advisor at Human Rights Watch, concluded that institutionsthat use solitary confinement “create their own monsters.”

Noting that “negative health effects can occur after only afew days in solitary confinement, and the health risks rise with eachadditional day spent in such conditions,” Prof. Mendez recommended that in allcases where an inmate is subjected to solitary confinement, there must be an“affirmative determination that it will not result in severe pain orsuffering.” Dr. Venters echoed this recommendation, saying that there is avital role for an independent medical authority in determining whether someonecan be subjected to solitary confinement.

While much has been written about the over-reliance onsolitary confinement in prisons and jails, little is known about its use in theUSimmigration detention system. Despite the fact that almost all of the 33,400detainees held in this system each night are housed in prison and jail-likesettings, immigration detention is not supposed to be punitive. In other words,immigration detainees are not held as punishment for committing a crime, butrather to ensure that they comply with the government’s decision about whetherthey will be allowed to remain in the US.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that members ofcertain populations, such as LGBT detainees and gang members, are routinelyseparated from the general population in immigration detention facilities forboth protective and punitive reasons. But US Immigration and CustomsEnforcement (ICE), the agency charged with overseeing the detention ofimmigrants, does not keep track of or even ask for statistics on the use ofsolitary confinement in the detention facilities run by its contractors.Without even this basic level of oversight, it is difficult to gauge the pervasivenessof this practice in our nation’s sprawling network of immigration detentionfacilities. But any use of solitary confinement whatsoever in a non-punitivedetention system is troubling. ICE should commit to tracking the use ofsolitary confinement among its contractors and implementing binding regulationsthat strictly limit its use to only those very few cases where it is absolutelynecessary to ensure safety within a detention center.

“Attention ALLwater customers: To be compliant with new laws concerning immigration you musthave an Alabama driver’s license or an Alabama picture ID card on file at thisoffice… or you may lose water service.” (Sign posted in the offices of apublic water company in the small town of Allgood, Alabama)

This warning is the manifestation of Section 30 of Alabama’sextreme anti-immigrant law, HB56, which makes it a felony for someone withoutproper immigration papers to try to enter into a “business transaction” withthe “state or political subdivision of the state.” While the law is unclear asto what exactly constitutes a “business transaction” or what state actors areaffected, it appears to include contracts with utility companies that provideAlabama residents with the basic essentials of life. Violation of this sectionis a Class C felony, punishable by up to ten years in prison. This means thatundocumented people in Alabama may be incarcerated for a decade for trying toaccess running water for their homes.

Such denial of basic facilities is part of a harshreductionist strategy called “attrition through enforcement” which is designedto make life so difficult for immigrants that they will return to their homecountries. This doctrine was first articulated by the anti-immigrant Center forImmigration Studies in 2005, and has been increasingly advanced by hard-lineRepublican Congressmen who are vehemently opposed to comprehensive immigrationreform. Ultimately, the goal behind “attrition through enforcement” is toachieve the mass removal of millions of immigrants from the US.

This “self-deportation” avoids both the financial costs andbad press of rounding up immigrant families and deporting them. Hardliners hopethey will buy their own tickets because daily life in the US involves suchhardship. The fear and intentional dislocation that HB56 is designed to spur seemsto be working. Since the law went into effect, Latino families are leavingAlabama in droves. Businesses are closing; employers are wondering where theirworkers have gone, classroom desks are empty.

Access to clean water is considered a basic human right-just like the right to food and the right to live without torture. The UnitedNational General Assembly approved a resolution last year stating so. Althoughthe resolution is not legally enforceable, it symbolically places a politicalobligation on governments not to restrict access to clean drinking water toanyone who resides within its borders. Alabama’s law is, therefore, not onlyinhumane, but defies this commitment.

On October 5, the Department of Justice’s request thatimplementation of the law be suspended until the pending court cases areresolved, was rejected. While the appeal winds its way through the courts, theestimated 130,000 undocumented immigrants in Alabama are at risk of losing orbeing denied access to clean water. This is nothing short of a humanitariancrisis – right here at home – and virtually no one is reporting on it, exceptthe UK newspaper, The Guardian.Our astonishment that a circumscribed class of people in the US could betargeted for denial of water is rivaled only by our disappointment in the USmedia for failing to notice.

UPDATE, 19 October 2011: This week, The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) admitted that staff in Bahrain took ‘‘wholly inappropriate’’ actions following Bahrain’s February protests, and RCSI’s chief executive professor ‘‘unreservedly apologized’’ for forcing students to swear loyalty oaths to Bahrain’s royal family.

The apology comes in response to a British Medical Journal article published earlier this month that cited PHR (pdf), which charged that RCSI would be open to charges of complicity in the detention and torture of Bahrain’s doctors if its administration did not take a public stance.

PHR reiterates the call for an end to the egregious and systematic attacks on doctors in Bahrain and under all oppressive governments. For more information, see PHR’s documentation of gross violations of medical neutrality and human rights in its report Do No Harm: A Call for Bahrain to End Systematic Attacks on Doctors and Patients.

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UPDATE, 25 June 2011:  According to the Irish Times, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland has expressed “deep concernsfor the rights of detained medical personnel” in Bahrain in its firstpublic statement criticising the actions of the ruling regime in thekingdom.

Ireland has a long history of promoting human rights at the international level; the former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, later became the top human rights official at the United Nations. But the country’s leading medical institution, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), has been conspicuously absent in the global call for the Kingdom of Bahrain to stop its relentless and systematic attack on medical workers. Since mid-February, reports of human rights violations in Bahrain have increased significantly as Bahraini authorities have attempted to suppress anti-government protests. Given the close ties of RCSI to the Bahraini government, its lack of response should come as no surprise.

This relationship dates back 20 years: the Royal College has run post-graduate courses and exams in Bahrain, and many Bahraini medical students have studied in Ireland.

Several RCSI members have disappeared during the crackdown in Bahrain and targeting of medical professionals, including Ghassan Dhaif, Baser Dhaif and Ali Al Ekri, who was arrested while performing surgery at Salmaniya Medical Complex. The RCSI sent a fact-finding mission from Ireland which met with Deputy Prime Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa. However, the mission did not meet with any of the families of the missing medics. After the trip, the RCSI declined to comment on their findings or release a report despite criticism coming from England’s Royal College of Surgeons. Amnesty International Ireland has since spoken out against RCSI, demanding they use their influence to pressure the Bahraini government to release the medics.

The families of the missing have speculated that the reason for the RCSI’ refusal to criticize the government is financial. RCSI Bahrain represents an important starting point for expansion into the Middle East, and the RCSI has invested millions of Euro to bolster their relationship with the Bahraini government.

Medical professionals and the facilities in which they operate provide essential services and receive heightened protections under international law. Amidst violence, medical professionals and institutions must remain firmly dedicated to their duty to provide medical care to those in need regardless of nationality, ethnicity, political affiliation, or other social division. This concept of “medical neutrality” is firmly grounded in international humanitarian law, professional codes and ethics, and international human rights law.

Physicians for Human Rights documented gross violations of medical neutrality and human rights in its recent report Do No Harm: A Call for Bahrain to End Systematic Attacks on Doctors and Patients.

PHR joined the American College of Physicians, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Medical Association, Doctors for Human Rights-UK, the International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organizations, and the National Arab American Medical Association in petitioning the Crown Prince of Bahrain to cease attacks on hospitals, patients, and medical professionals.

The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland has an ethical responsibility to call for an end to the egregious and systematic attacks on doctors – some of whom are their own alumni — who face trumped up charges of medical malpractice and treason. The Royal College must speak out, if not — get out of Bahrain.